Trained as an historian of modern Europe and the Atlantic World, I think and write primarily about the history of German lands and peoples since the 18th century. Within this field, what has interested me the most are events, developments, and institutions related to what can broadly be described as ‘economic life.’ I tend to approach these histories in ways reminiscent of E.P. Thompson and many others who think about moral economy and who ask about the meanings that contemporaries attached to various social and economic activities. 

My first monograph-length study, The Migrant’s Spirit: How Industrial Modernity Came to the German Lands (Oxford University Press, 2025), is an attempt to better understand the process of industrialization, which in Germany entered a particularly intensive and violent phase shortly after the middle of the nineteenth century. Nine chapters reconstruct key transformations in contemporary thought and practice related to work, entrepreneurship, banking and finance, foreign trade, and the corporation. One of the book’s findings is that many of these conceptual transformations, which proved so crucial to the mobilization of labor and capital for the emerging industrial regime of production, were either catalyzed or put in motion by a then-burgeoning cultural exchange with the German diaspora in North America.

In more recent research, I return to the themes of cultural exchange and circulating ideas, albeit in a different historical setting and through the perspectives of different historical actors. Tentatively titled "War Stories: The Work of Soldiers and the Rules of Commerce," the project examines changing assumptions about work, commerce, and entrepreneurship within the itinerant contexts of eighteenth and nineteenth century military life. While it is a commonplace to imagine the modern workplace and economy in accordance with military metaphors—think of business ‘empires,’ ‘armies’ of salesmen, ‘mercenary’ labor—this project is an attempt to take seriously the many ways in which the experiences and cultural imaginaries of war have both shaped and been shaped by notions of right and wrong in the worlds of work and commerce.

Although my past and current research is a helpful indicator of my ongoing interests in history, I am continuously exploring new topics, methods, and sources. Hence I welcome inquiries from prospective graduate students who share my current interests, but I am also open to advising on adjacent fields and topics within modern European and modern German history. Those considering applying to Brown’s PhD program should also note that we approach graduate training as a collective enterprise, meaning that our students tend to work with multiple advisors instead of just one. Prospective students may consider the ways in which their research interests might intersect with, and benefit from, the work of several of our faculty members.

Apart from my book and articles, I regularly review new scholarship for Central European History and German Studies. See also my interpretation of James Scott's Against the Grain. A Deep History of the Earliest States (Yale UP, 2017), published in Taxis Magazine ("The Nomad in Us). A reflection on ideas in motion, titled "Migration, Creativity, and the Construction of Knowledge," was recently published by the German Historical Institute (GHI).  

2025 | National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend Grant

2022 | Cogut Institute Faculty Fellowship, Brown University

2021 | Student Accessibility Services (SAS) Access Ambassador Award, Brown University

2021 | Richard B. Salomon Faculty Research Award, Brown University

2018 | Commencement Speaker, Stanford History Department

2016 | Mellon Foundation Dissertation Fellowship

2013 | Fritz Thyssen Pre-Dissertation Fellowship, IICAS at UC San Diego 

2012 | Teagle Foundation Graduate Teaching Award

2011 | Charles E. Shepard Scholarship for Graduate Study, Emory University 

• German Studies Association
• American Historical Association
• Society for Military History

I teach several seminars and survey courses on the migration, capitalism, and war, often with a focus on modern Europe and/or modern Germany. In the past I have also taught on topics in Latin American history and global history, as well as on the sources and methods of historical inquiry.